Cameron Crozman / Philip Chiu TAPEO

 

TAPEO

 

Rolando Villazón / Xavier de Maistre SERENATA LATINA

SERENATA LATINA

 

sixty1strings AMARABÀ

AMARABÀ

Claudio Constantini / Louiza Hamadi 20TH CENTURY TANGO

20TH CENTURY TANGO

Raquel Lojendio / Chiky Martín P'RA VOCÊ

P'RA VOCÊ

Lang Lang PIANO BOOK

Recorded at London’s Abbey Road studios and in Beijing, ‘Piano Book’ is Lang Lang’s very personal playlist for everyone who loves the piano. It’s also the fruits of an astonishing career that has taken him from child prodigy to virtuoso at the very top of his profession. Equally happy playing for billions of viewers at the Olympics or just for a few hundred children in the public schools, Lang Lang is a master of communicating through music and his new album is a testament to that.

Shani Diluka ROAD 66

Diluka brings appreciable nuance and delicacy to Adams’s China Gates and Beach’s Young Birches, and infuses the churning minimalist patterns of Glass’s Etude No 9 with more dynamic and colouristic range than one often hears from so-called contemporary music specialists. In most lyrical pieces, however, softer dynamics often recede and wilt to the point of fading away, especially when Diluka makes diminuendos. You hear this in the two Bernstein Anniversaries, Ginastera’s ‘Danza de la moza donosa’ and Grainger’s gorgeous transcription of Gershwin’s ‘Love walked in’. Her spineless performance of Copland’s Piano Blues No 1 lacks the sinew and projection heard from Leo Smit, the work’s dedicatee, although such a style befits Hyung-ki Joo’s noodly, shapeless Chandeliers. 

However, Diluka’s faster-than-usual tempo for Cage’s In a Landscape rescues this music from its usual frozen dream state. Her enervated, flaccid approach to Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans is alien to these jazz icons in both spirit and letter; in fact she misreads Waltz for Debby’s fourth-to-last chord. But Diluka plays the piano part to Raphaël Merlin’s brilliant, harmonically imaginative arrangement of Cole Porter’s ‘What is this thing called love’ gorgeously, abetted by special guest Natalie Dessay’s sultry singing. Had the two paired up for an entire CD’s worth of Merlin-arranged standards, I would have stayed up all night behind the wheel to listen, rather than squirming in the back seat to the tune of ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ (Jed Distler / Gramophone)

Andreas Woyke FESTAS SURAMERICANAS

The 'Ciclo Brasileiro' by Heitor Villa-Lobos begins with two impressionistic pieces, 'Plantio do caboclo' and 'Impressoes seresteiras'. Then the music does explode in a musical feast and a frenetic dance. With incredible virtuosity and impetuous drive Andreas Woyke ignites electrifying music on his piano that probably would scare the devil in hell. 

But it does even get more dramatic in 'Rudepoema' (Wild poem, also Savage poem), the longest, most virtuoso and most complex piano solo piece by Villa-Lobos. 

Marc-André Hamelin has recorded this work that has often been compared to Stravinsky's 'Sacre du Printemps' on a Hyperion CD in an immensly enthralling way, but Andreas Woyke does surpass him with a fascinatingly passionate, threateningly unrestrained and headily haunting performance. 

The listener always gets the impression Woyke would truly have to take off with his piano and fly out of the hall with this incredible thrust. 

The move to Alberto Ginastera does not give any rest to the pianist. The first movement of the Argentine's First Piano Sonata is thrillingly dramatic and Woyke plays it like in a trance. But that's nothing compared to the presto misterioso and its nervous driving force. Also Ginastera's Adagio is full of passion and eruptions. The movement is in good hands with Woyke, because he seemingly does use it like an elastic spring being wound up to provide slingshot power in the last movement, a Malambo dance. This also can be found in the first and last of the three 'Danzas Argentinas', while the middle dance is very tranquil and allows Woyke to show his sensitivity in finest nuances as well. 

But again, the main feature of this SACD is the virtuoso, and Andreas Woyke faces this tour de force with incredible power and technical predominance, making the various pieces sound with an indescribably brilliant verve. 

"Virtuosity is the main characteristic of this Villa-Lobos and Ginastera program, played with a peerless verve by Andreas Woyke" (Remy Franck)

Amsterdam Sinfonietta / Candida Thompson THE ARGENTINIAN ALBUM

I can’t imagine a more diverse palette of sounds, styles and colours than the three composers on this recording. They are unmistakably Argentinian yet tantalisingly different. Between them they represent the vibrant fusion of cultures that exist in Argentina today. In order to give full justice to their music, we researched their personal tastes, sources and sound worlds, looking for the influences that shaped them. Although one immediately feels that Ginastera’s unique masterpiece Concerto per corde is written in a language close to the European masterworks of the twentieth century such as Bartók’s Divertimento, or Berg’s Lyric Suite, it’s a very particular and original work. Ginastera changes between such imaginative quasi improvised solo sections and very precisely structured passages. While playing his Concerto one has a tremendous feeling of freedom within structure. (Candida Thompson)

Grupo Encuentros / Alicia Terzian 40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

Since composer, conductor and musicologist Alicia Terzian founded Grupos Encuentros in 1978, the six-person group has garnered international acclaim for its success at bringing the music of avant-garde Argentinian and Latin American composers to the world. On 40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, their debut recording for NAVONA RECORDS, the group combines compositions from such well-known Latin American composers as Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alberto Ginastera, and Terzian herself with works by an international array of composers that ranges from Anton Webern (Germany) to Luciano Berio (Italy) to Franz Schreker (Austria) to Pierre Boulez (France).

Grupo Encuentros consists of mezzo soprano Marta Blanco, pianist Claudio Espector, flutist Fabio Mazzitelli, clarinetist Matias Tchicourel, violinist Sergio Polizzi and violoncellist Carlos Nozzi.  In this CD, saxophonist Maria Noel Luzzardo, oboist Ruben Albornoz, bassoonist Ernesto Imsand and percussionist Arauco Yepes join Encuentros Group. The program presented on 40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC originally premiered at the annual Encuentros International Festivas in Buenos Aires and truly highlights the brilliance of these award-winning musicians, who have earned high praise from such media outlets as the Los Angeles Times, where they were lauded as “deeply serious and challenging.” Over their 40 year-long career, the group has performed in more than 300 concert halls and festivals of the main cities of five continents including London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York City’s Merkin Auditorium.

40 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC transcends cultural boundaries with such selections as Villa-Lobos’ Choro No 7, which unites the sounds of Amerindian primitivism with the polkas and waltzes of suburban dance halls in Brazil. Emphasizing her status as a renowned ethnomusicologist, Terzian dedicates her composition Yagua Ya Yuca to the Chiriguano and Chanel peoples, who belong to a lost indigenous northwestern Argentinian culture O King was composed the same year as the assassination of Martin Luther King, a tragedy which deeply affected its Italian composer Luciano Berio.

Grupo Encuentros founder Alicia Terzian has composed over 80 compositions for orchestras, orchestra with soloist, and chamber orchestras with and without soloists, musical theater, dance, and multimedia. She travels the world giving seminars on composition and contemporary chamber music at European and American universities and is often invited to participate on juries at international compositions.

Mayke Rademakers / Matthijs Verschoor LA FURIA: PASSION, FURY AND MELANCHOLIA

Mayke Rademakers: All my life, I’ve played a lot of Spanish music, and so has my partner and duo-pianist Matthijs Verschoor. Both of us have worked and studied in Spain. And I spent some time immersing myself in Buenos Aires, because I wanted to see the tango with my own eyes: how people perceived it, how they danced it in the streets and on public squares. At a certain point we got this sense of wanting to do something with it. We had a number of works on our repertoire and so we investigated how we could combine them with new pieces, music we still needed to discover, to produce a great CD. We found the music we were looking for. We put together an exciting combination of Spanish and South American music. In a nutshell: flamenco and tango. 

Spanish music takes folk music as its starting point. La Furia is based on that idea. This music is about the heat, the poverty, about lifestyle and passion. La furia literally means anger or aggression. But in Latin, the word has very positive connotations. It means doing what your instincts tell you, acting with passion, giving it your all. The tango flamenco spread from Spain to South America. The tango is truly South American. Although it does show some flamenco influences, the tango definitely found its own form. Perhaps the biggest difference is that the tango is ‘urban’, because it arose in Buenos Aires. The flamenco is ‘rustic’, because it arose in the countryside.

Martha Argerich & Friends LIVE FROM LUGANO 2015

The Lugano Festival in Switzerland is documented annually with a box set by Martha Argerich & Friends, containing their performances in various instrumental combinations. The three-CD package contains live recordings from the 2015 festival of works by Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Ferdinand Ries, Joaquín Turina, Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Luis Bacalov, Francis Poulenc, Philip Glass, and Alberto Ginastera, Argerich's fellow countryman whose centennial in 2016 is observed with a performance of Dances from Estancia. The roster of performers is impressive, as always, boasting the talents of Argerich and her colleagues, pianists Stephen Kovacevich, Nicholas Angelich, Lilya Zilberstein, and Sergio Tiempo, cellist Gautier Capuçon, violinists Ilya Gringolts, Mayu Kishima, and Andrey Baranov, clarinetist Paul Meyer, and the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, conducted by Alexander Vedernikov. The June 2016 release of this Warner Classics set also marks Argerich's 75th birthday.

Anaïs Gaudemard / Orchestre de l'Opéra de Rouen Normandie / Leo Hussain GINASTERA - DEBUSSY - BOIELDIEU Harp Concertos

An internationally recognized soloist, Anaïs Gaudemard quickly stood out in the musical world among the best current harpists.

In 2012, she wins the First Prize at the prestigious International Harp Contest in Israel, and the special award for the best interpretation of The Crown of Ariadne by Murray Schafer, then in 2016 she wins the 2nd Prize and the Münchener Kammerorchester Prize at ARD Competition in Munich.

 In 2015, Anaïs wins the « Thierry Scherz Prize » at the Festival des Sommets Musicaux in Gstaad. This prize, awarded by the Foundation Scientia Pro Arte, offers to her the opportunity to record a CD with orchestra. Anaïs has chosen to dedicate it to the Concertos for Harp by Debussy, Boieldieu and Ginastera with the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie. It will be released the November 4, 2016 on the Claves Records label.

Anaïs Gaudemard has the privilege to collaborate with orchestras such as the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Münchener Kammerorchester, the Symphonie-Orchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie ; under the direction of Claudio Abbado, Leonard Slatkin, Kazushi Ono, Nir Kabaretti, Leo Hussain, Emmanuel Krivine, Constantin Trinks. She performs as soloist and gives master classes in China, Canada, Israel, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, USA, …

Anaïs Gaudemard studied at the CNSMD in Lyon, France (First prize unanimously awarded with the congratulations of the jury in 2013) then she continued her studies at the HEMU in Lausanne where she obtained the Master of Arts specialized « Soloist » with the highest honors and the First Jost Prize which recognizes the best performance of a concerto in 2015.

Since 2014, she is laureate of the Fondation d’Entreprise Banque Populaire which grants her an award to pursue this commitment in creation and the command of works for the harp.

Maximiano Valdes / Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela CARAMELOS LATINOS

This is a charming disc of popular Latin American music. The disc opens with a suite of dances by the Brazilian composer Mozart Camargo Guarnieri. They are characteristic dances bearing the titles Brazilian Dance, Savage Dance and Negro Dance, which sounds like it could have been written by Elmer Bernstein.

They were composed over a twenty-year period and were originally written for piano. The orchestral textures are rich and colorful. Guarnieri studied in Paris with Charles Koechlin and was a guest conductor at the Boston Symphony. Guarnieri composed Encantamento in 1941. The music comes close to his the evocative music teacher Koechlin. It begins with an atmospheric melody evocative of nature, but the music quickly builds into languid dance and then to the percussive rhythms of Brazilian folk music. The first hypnotic melody returns and the work ends quietly.
The short piece by Alberto Ginastera - Overture to the creole Faust - was based on the story by Estanislao del Campo and dates from 1943. The overture has begins with a sinister melody that quickly turns into a dance, somewhat reminiscent of Estancia. The music settles into a reflective melody, developing into a more dramatic melody to close the work. 

The short piece, The Wandering Tadpole of Silvestre Revueltas, is not well known. This is a dance from a larger ballet for children. The music has a nice sense of humor with various instruments darting back and forth with bits of melody, and there are echoes of a mariachi band.
Venezuelan composer Inocente Carreno's Margaritena receives a spirited performance. The music is centered on a folk song Margarita es una lagrima, which Carreno skillfully weaves into a rhapsody. Juan Bautista Plaza, also born in Venezuela, was considered one of the founders of Venezuelan national music. The fuga romantica for strings, from 1950, was written as homage to Bach. 

The selection closes with a work by Jose Pablo Mocayo - Hupango. Hupango is a corruption of fandango and is a dance performed on wooden planks. A brilliant score captures the essence of the dance.
This is a great selection of Latin American music nicely performed by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra under Maximiano Valdes. Highly recommended. (Amazon.com)

Patrick Demenga / Thomas Demenga 12 HOMMAGES A PAUL SACHER POUR VIOLONCELLE

This unique collection features compositions written to celebrate the 70th birthday, in 1976, of Paul Sacher, Swiss conductor and arts patron. Presented together on disc for the first time, the 12 pieces on this double album are effectively a landscape of modern cello music.

Each of the composers were asked to write a piece using, as a starting point, a motif of the 6 letters of Sacher’s name. New Series soloist Thomas Demenga - acclaimed for his sequence of albums juxtaposing Bach and contemporary composers - and his brother Patrick Demenga are the performers.

Nearly two decades ago, Mstislav Rostropovich asked a dozen composer-friends to write short works for him to play as part of the celebration of the 75th birthday of Paul Sacher, arguably the century's greatest patron of music. The theme, based on six notes translated from letters of the name of the honoree, was to be developed by Benjamin Britten for variations by Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Alberto Ginastera, Cristobal Halffter, Witold Lutoslawski and others.

The composers, however, responded differently in terms of the form, length and, in one instance, number of musicians for their pieces, and Rostropovich never played all of them. Some were recorded by other artists; the present release is the first to offer them in a musical "bouquet," as intended.
Few listeners will want to hear the entire program in a single 83-minute sitting. But the music is for anyone who loves the Bach Cello Suites or the Kodaly solo Sonata. Despite touches of academic severity, there's tremendous variety of sound and expression, with playing of the highest order. It's a challenging collection to come to terms with before the observances of Sacher's 95th birthday next March. (August 06, 1995 / Alan G. Artner)

Kim Kashkashian / Robert Levin ASTURIANA Songs from Spain and Argentina

Kim Kashkashian and Robert Levin have been playing together since the mid 1970s. Their debut ECM release was “Elegies” recorded in 1984, with music of Britten, Vaughan Williams, Carter, Glasunow, Liszt, Kodály and Vieuxtemps. This was soon followed by the Sonatas for Viola/Piano - and for Solo Viola - of Hindemith. In 1990 they recorded Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano op 147 for the New Series, in 1996 the Brahms viola sonatas in a recording that won the Edison Award.

Kim Kashkashian’s international career was given impetus by her early success at the Munich ARD competition. From the outset she was much in demand as a chamber musician and as a guest at festivals including Marlboro, Spoleto, Mostly Mozart, Lockenhaus und Salzburg. Previously a music professor in Freiburg and at the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin, she teaches today at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Robert Levin is renowned for his restoration of the classical period practise of improvised embellishments and cadenzas, and his many recordings include Mozart piano concertos with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, and Beethoven concertos with John Eliot Gardiner und the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Alongside his concert activities Levin is also a noted theorist and Mozart scholar. His completion of the Mozart Mass in C Minor was premiered in Carnegie Hall in January 2005. Robert Levin is a professor of humanities at Harvard University, and was recently appointed artistic director of the Sarasota Music Festival.